Vengeance
by skywalker05
Summary: AU. Darth Maul narrowly survives the duel at Naboo, and when he attempts to return to his Master, he finds that Count Dooku has usurped his place as Sith apprentice. Maul seeks to kill Dooku, but will require help from an unlikely ally--Obi-Wan Kenobi.
1. Teaser Chapter: Something Like Revenge

_**A/N: **This fic is a companion tale to 'Something Like Revenge' by Argenteus Draco. They are best experienced together. Each tells the same story from the point of view of a different main character._

_Please note that this is a teaser chapter only, like the trailer for a film. The events leading up to it will be explained shortly, beginning in chapter one._

**Vengeance**

_Teaser Chapter_

I wish I could see them all like this. Every Jedi in the towers, looking at me with an expression of denial and shock and fear. Admittedly, he doesn't fear much. He'll be their champion, this one. Yes, I respect my enemy.

He almost killed me once.

His hand is nervously at his lightsaber, but he knows the power that backs him here on their ground. It's harder than I thought it would be, not to kill him now.

I say, "Surprised to see me?"

"'Surprised' is not quite the word I'd use." He says, eyes narrowing.

I know exactly how this dialogue will go. I know what will surprise him more, and I await it eagerly. "I've been looking for you. Do you know why, Jedi?"

"You want revenge."

"No."

Ah, the surprise. The stilling of breath. "No?"

I pace. "No. I hunt a man who calls himself Darth Tyranus. I need whatever information you have in order to find him. And you need me to kill him." He opens his mouth to speak, then, intimidated, silences himself. "You get the prize and the glory. I only want the favor of my Master. Do we have a deal, Jedi?"

We look at one another for a moment.

He says, "We have a deal, but only provided that it remains strictly between the two of us."

"Of course." He expected something else? "After all, the world thinks I'm dead. Who would believe you anyway?"

I offer him a handshake. He seals his fate.


	2. Recovery I

"longing woke

in the cooped-up exile

for a voyage home--

but more for vengeance."

_Beowulf _

* * *

**Chapter I**

I thought Jedi knew better.

They knew well enough how to use two against one, never letting me put the Padawan in the way of the Master. It was a fast, satisfying battle in the inner workings of Theed, energy crackling between us. Ah, the shivering, intoxicating moment of suspense when the red screen separated the Master Jedi and I, with the Padawan's agitation jittering through the Force from farther down the corridor. When the force field unleashed the Master, I killed him.

Ah, the feral look in the Padawan's eyes when he stood behind the last barrier and could do nothing. I almost smiled at him, and his fury fluoresced into the useful spectrum.

It leaks away as he hangs in the pit, as does his physical energy.

Suddenly the Force surges, and pain burns through me. I never see the blue blade retract from my chest. I remember nothing until I wake up on the cold floor, the faint reek of death in the air, each breath paining through me in an unnatural, twisting, half-numb way. I taste blood in my mouth. I've never before felt pain exactly like this, but on the fringes of my wound the distinct sting of livid burns is recognizable, as is the smell of scorched flesh. Tucking my hand beneath my tunic to touch the edge of the wound ignites more agony, more sick-sense-of-_wrongness_. With the Force, I touch gore and knowledge.

The Padawan stabbed me through. And I'm still alive.

I rejoice, triumph, laugh inside. His lightsaber missed my hearts, cauterized main veins, severed the rib that now causes my side such discomfort, and missed my spine by a nerve cluster . But the Padawan was so careless, or knew so little anatomy, that I am distinctly, excruciatingly, alive, muscles torn, alive.

I thought Jedi knew better.

But—triumph! I'm _alive_, and the Padawan is gone. The Jedi Master is curled up on the ground, human skin growing cold—I move toward him, and although all the intensity of a rush is in that movement I am dragging myself, distracted by the fiery pain and imagining the punishments such distractions merit, blinded by rage that—

Sends me to my knees in front of the Jedi, as if gravity has taken a greater hold of me than it had before. Dead Jedi, my trophy—

I push him over the edge, watch the body fall, and clench my teeth not to scream from the pain of movement.

Sidious' laughter is inside my head. He laughs with abandon, at thoughts I do not know, sometimes—and he laughs now at the limp Jedi crumpling away into the pit, the tails of his tan tunic flapping. His laughter is a challenge, telling me to move, and to hurt.

I make it back to my ship.

The walk is a haze, flickers of Naboo guards' awareness punctuating it like dim points of light in the gloom. I do not stumble, but I close my mind against the pain in my chest and back. My vision tunnels…regrettable. Until I lock the doors of the hanger and then of my ship I feel vulnerable, not at all like myself. Inside, I sit down on a bench in an alcove off the medical supply room, and use the Force to snatch bacta pacs and adhesive sprays from the shelves. I do what I can to heal the hole in my chest, but pain is flashing through my nerves. The Force is insisting on oblivion, on a trance I do not want to go in to. It will be deep. I should not stay here for long.

I don't remember falling asleep.

I remember waking up slowly, without alarm. No one has touched the ship. Pain, worse than before, makes me want to go back to sleep , but will not allow it. My nerves have come out of one kind of shock into another—the pain is detailed and congealed now. I clench my teeth against the agony of flayed sinews and my severed rib with every breath.

I change the bacta patches, which are the best healing I can do here and now. They're antibiotics, painkillers, miracle drugs. I can't sew a wound like this—fixing the skin would be useless. I need to stay still, to let the Force rearrange me. I'll have to move that rib soon, or it will heal skewed if at all.

Replacing the bacta pacs sends me into trance—or shock—again.

I am going to be here for a long time. Standing isn't an option. I did enough damage, messing with the neat hole the lightsaber burned in me, struggling all the way here. I can lay as comfortably as possible on the hard bench, close my eyes, and hibernate like an animal.

Master Sidious' credit account will feed payment into the docking bay's fee meter. If someone investigates too deeply, the ship will kill them. What with the invasion, I'm sure they're far too busy to.

I am going to be here for a long time.

Sleep, bacta, sleep. Sit up and rest the back of my head against the cold wall. Bacta. Sleep. Days? I need to shower. I can't move. The pain of using the Force to push my rib back into place sends me back to sleep. This retreat, this is for lesser beings--! I remain awake, fingers tangled in and tearing my discarded shirt.

My lightsaber is on the floor in two, functional, pieces. It would have been infinitely shameful to leave it.

The silver hilts remind me of blue light. Pain flares when I remember the attack that left me like this. My body is afraid now, and trying to forcibly condition it, to erase the flinch reflex, hurts.

Pain. Bacta. Sleep. Days. Gradually, sitting up gets less precarious.

Finally, once, I scream. I try to convince myself that it doesn't matter. There's no one around to hear.

Darth Sidious hears, just like I knew he would.

There is no holoprojector in this room. I can hear his voice from the holoproj in the first-level hub of the ship. I know every creak of his voice, every careful intonation. I've never feared failure in quite this way before, but I will never hesitate to speak to him. I _cannot _disappoint him.

"Lord Maul." He waits. I manage to sit up. "Lord Maul."

I stagger to the door of the medical room. My legs are shaky from disuse, and the weakness in my breathing seems to translate to my steps as well. I make it to the larger room and sink to my knees. "Master."

"So…you have survived. Impressive. Most impressive. However, your timing is flawed. You have been gone too long. A new apprentice has come to me."

He has done this to me before. Rivalry breeds excellence. I remember Silus. I remember how Sidious goaded me into wanting to kill even himself. I say nothing now.

"Nurse your wound, Maul. Your progress will…interest me."

Such disdain. I have been discarded, like the tool of war he often compares me to. I cannot even channel my rage, my fear of abandonment, my mad impetuous, into movement, and so as I rest in pain just as I have for the last weeks, I channel wrath toward this new apprentice.

"Who is it?" I growl. He knows what I mean, and I do not expect an answer.

He hesitates for a moment, weighing the stakes of the game. Then he gives me, "Dooku of Serenno. Darth Tyranus."

He is going to enjoy our battle.

So am I.


	3. Recovery II

**Chapter II**

My skin begins to heal, coming in pale pink and welling with healing blood. The wound is stiff inside now, and again the pain has changed. The exit point on my back is harder to reach, and so remains raw longer. Eventually I can stand to look at my back in a mirror hung on the inside of a metal cabinet. The onboard miniature med-droid, plugged as it is into the wall, is finally able to assist me.

After a time of harsh denial, I come to the conclusion that my master did not plan for me to survive against the two Jedi. Perhaps he even foresaw my death, not the narrow miss.

Perhaps I will have my revenge on Sidious as well. But first, this man Tyranus.

When I can go to the ship's computer, I do. Finding the Count Dooku on Serenno is not challenging; the royal family is proud of their lineage. Surprisingly, the Dooku records intersect with those of the Jedi Temple. Sidious took this wretch from our enemies' halls? Silently the anger burns within my thoughts. The Jedi records are impenetrable, I know, to both public and specialized eyes. They needed to be. I wonder what they have to hide.

I focus. Even my thoughts are whirring away, released by the betrayal of my master. It is almost as if he is dead, because that eventuality is the only one I ever imagined where he and I not allied. But such tangential thoughts must be pushed away. Focus.

Dooku became a Jedi, and then defected. Lord Sidious found him, and is grooming him as my replacement. His location? Perhaps The Works, my training ground, but most likely not. Dooku has his own past, and Lord Sidious has hideouts I do not know.

Where to begin?

I want to fly. I want to leave this place, where cameras may have their glinting eyes on my ship. I am still stiff, and carefully monitor my body's reactions to the painkillers and other ministrations. But once I get to the pilot's seat, flying is familiar enough to be comfortable. I am surprised that the Naboo have not tried to investigate this ship: I have been in their hanger for almost a month, with the doors locked and the cameras on.

A quick look at a local newsfeed erases most of the confusion. The Trade Federation's push into wilderness opened up a nest of gundarks: aquatic sentients called Gungans, with whom the Naboo have been negotiating for the last few weeks, since a peace was officially declared between the two cultures. The droid armies have been wiped out by a human child called Anakin Skywalker—the newsfeeds are replete with his face.

News of Queen Amidala pierces me with the reminder of my failure. I would endeavor to complete my task, I would prevail--but the time for that treaty has passed and the Neimoidians have fled. The galaxy has moved on and forgotten, although I barely can resist pursuing her to complete Sidious' wishes to the letter.

The _Infiltrator _leaves Naboo's skies without a word shouted after it.

The Sith have been hidden for so long. I yearn to burst from the shadows and reveal our existence, to know the resulting fear. For now, I will turn that energy, and direct it toward this being Dooku.

**I'm not ready **for this. I know it the moment I step through the shattered window of Chateau Malreaux. Vjun: world of acid rain, bloodthirsty groundcover, gothic architecture. My wound twinges when my boots hit the tiled floor, but I am a juggernaut, an intent, a drive--!

Dooku says, "Thank you for notifying me of the malfunctioning force field. But you could have just _opened _the window." He is as he looked in Sidious' records, the ones still open to me. They also provided the Count's likely locations, including this mansion. He has one hand on an antique bookshelf, his feet in a fencer's stance, and the mien of a carrion bird; shrewd, cold-eyed, arrogant. Circling above his prey which does not know it is about to die. Stormy clouds outside cast gray shadows in the daylight.

I activate my lightsaber. It is repaired in the most rudimentary way, wiring and electrical tape—I attack, the blades held low. I get the satisfaction of knowing his surprise. He has never seen such a weapon before; saber hand pushing his red blade around in elegant loops, he backs away into the center of the room.

Strike, parry, jump, clash, strike. He spins, cuts for my shoulder. I block, and something inside me tears. My throat is filling with blood. Dooku moves forward to press the advantage, and I spit it onto his face. I mustn't bring a hand to my chest, although I'm falling apart, pain leaking through my defenses as surely as a blade. I step away from the bookcase he pushed me toward, away from him.

He hurls books at me with the Force. It is easy to turn them aside, even with my arms tucked close against my body. The Force holds the skin-bound pages, the breakable spines. He knocks some away from his face with one hand, deflects some to the floor with a flourish of his lightsaber and the Force; one hits him on the side. He does not respond—doesn't retaliate. The tests are over. These records older than holocrons lie broken, tented into triangles, some pages littering the floor. He's standing in their midst looking at me with incredulity, knowing that I feel like I'm falling apart.

"So," he says, sonorously, regal even with the red blood spattering his white hair. "You are the old apprentice. Interesting. Lord Sidious suggested you might be alive."

I say nothing. Vaguely I think, _So?_ I often am subject to this apathy. _There are forty armed guards on a causeway between my success and I. So?_

"Interesting." He examined me; like Sidious he silently examined the set of my feet. "A cowering animal. It is a bit sad for the future, really."

I must not move.

"Leave," he says.

I _am _surprised. I was prepared to die. "Why?" Why do you allow this, Dooku? Let your mercy, or whatever it was, teach me about you.

"A clear enemy will provide me _practice._ Besides, it's not worth my time right now to kill you." He turns his back once, infuriatingly secure, terribly correct, and walks away.

I think I can leave. I think I can bring myself back to my ship. It floats just outside the mansion.

Instead, for a time, I become well acquainted with the crimson-and-bone checkered floor.

**I wasn't ready.** I need to heal.

It takes one year and seven months.

I know exactly the time, the day, and the year, at any moment I wish to look for them. The chronometers are still synchronized with Naboo, although I set my ship to travel the galaxy. Occasionally I stop for fuel, using the Dark Eyes to order it. They have audio output, but rudimentary intelligence. The fuel-station workers hear my quiet voice emanate from the black droids.

In my sleeping quarters, the only thing that moves is the chrono display. I lie there and heal and atrophy. I want to _move_; I have never been still for long. The Force holds me down, now, because I have ordered it to. I discipline my disciplined rage into stillness.

Sidious preached patience, but always gave me diversions. Droids, obstacle courses, half-sentients to kill. Is resting this way against his wishes? Perhaps living is, but I still harbor aspersions of returning to him, perhaps with Dooku's white, severed head in hand. I am still the apprentice, one of two.

But Sidious himself broke that rule.

I am confused, and thought does not alleviate the confusion.

**I wake up**, change the bandages over my wounds, check the flawless navicomputer, and go back to sleep, cocooned in the Force; not a particular side of it, but a wave, a braid, of energy. Sometimes I would not have known whether I slept for a day or a week, were that information not written in green-glowing digits against the wall.

**When I can **exercise, I do. When I cannot, I do not. The former begins to overwhelm the latter.

**I need a **teacher. I'm working, rebuilding my body to as near its former state as it can be. I am no longer bed-ridden, and my skin has regrown so that I consider having it inked again. The tattoos are, though, a mark of devotion, and I feel shaken as to who or what I am now devoted to. I have mended the staff lightsaber.

The ship's equipment serves well enough, but I require a sparring partner and new ground. But whom? If ever I have made allies during a mission, they were quickly discarded out of necessity, to protect the secret of the Sith. What permanent contact do I have? Who would be any use against experienced Dooku?

Jedi Padawan comes to mind. He is skilled…he veritably killed me. I will have to get into the Jedi Temple.

But he lost a master too.

And he will want to continue to fight the Sith, to fight Dooku, whose name he does not know. So I have information and an opportunity that he wants, as well as a task for him to undertake in turn.

First I need his location, then his name. His Force sense is burnt into my memory, coupled with my pain. It will not be easy to restrain myself from attacking him as I attacked Dooku, not as I wish to tear into any Jedi who lives. They will not find me, as I walk their halls cloaked in the dark side that pervades the galaxy. I will watch their masters, unseen.

I find myself imagining this future before it solidifies into a plan. Dangerous fantasies!

I must restrain myself, not move too quickly and fail, like on the last two occasions when my life was in another being's hands.

I plan.

Still, this walk into my enemy's fortress will be _satisfying_.


	4. Retrieval

III

I spent many days, when I was young enough to stand like a son at my Master's side, idling on the streets or rooftops of Coruscant and looking across the chasms at the Jedi Temple. He would speak softly, just loud enough for the words to travel from one cowl to another. He would say that I was destined to kill them, the Jedi, the collective mind-crowd, soon, soon enough, I would cut through their Masters as easily as a ship slides through hyperspace, not soon enough—!

And that is why the visits stopped; I would have escaped from his leash, from his hand at my neck, even from his thoughts ripping through mine, if he had not one day removed me from the temptation. No revelation yet, for the Jedi. No more vigils.

Until now.

I pay for a dock at the Senate spaceport and release the Dark Eyes. Each droid records crisp audio and visual and does not appear on scans for surveillance devices. They are agile, and hidden in ovoid, antennaed casings which could belong to any messenger or security or cam droid. I control them manually, allowing them to sometimes chose their own ways, and float them toward the spires.

I spend a handful of quiet hours sitting at my ship's control panel and following the droids' live holocam feeds, watching long walls slide by. The droids bat against the walls and then plunge, their own guidance maps telling them to search for supply routes into the Temple that will not allow them through its front doors. I see lit fuel stations, bulging tanks, depots, bay doors. Finally, the holodisplay shows me long halls, salmon-colored lights, ceilings with struts taller than those on some capital ships.

A lesser being would have stilled his breathing, thinking superstitiously that perhaps through the droids his enemy could hear. I almost understand that.

My Dark Eyes touch the fringes of the halls where the Jedi walk, and then I retract them. There are no cameras allowed in these mystic halls, and there is little sign of droids with higher functions than forever polishing the floor. I call my machines back.

And move in myself.

**It is a **process, cloaking oneself with the Force. As I walk I pull strings, as sure as each footstep, covering my emotions with pure energy, covering my _self _with the universe. I pass through crowds like a trickle of water through rocks. All the while _dampening_, slowing my anger as I could slow my heartsbeat, covering, cloaking, casting a pall. It is like meditation, like parlor tricks; one covers oneself with the cloth of the living Force, then removes the cloth, and there is nothing beneath. This trick must be excellent, because there are Masters, Sidious said, almost as great as mine. I have been planning for this, perfecting.

I know that there would be no hope for this venture unless Sidious had been working tirelessly for many years, constructing the machinery of obscuration, a miasma of the dark side which fogs my enemies' eyes. In it he and I are cloaked, and the Jedi almost lose that advantage which any Force user has over his lesser cousins, perception of presences.

I hope that, like many beings among whom I have spied, they will see no more than they expect to see.

Quickly I descend toward the workingbeings' entrance. Below the temple's first level and great door, the light of Coruscant is dim. I scale girders when I can, ruing sidewalks. Too quickly, in fact; I realize that I am arriving sooner than expected, because I am so _eager._

I can feel my lightsaber in my hand, although it is not there, like a desired meal tempts the taste buds with its phantom flavor. It takes discipline like pain to dampen the fightlust that curdles behind my eyes. I am here to _watch_. Only to watch, or they will all be upon me in their halls, and I am not ready. Sadly, obviously, never yet ready for them all. Only one, and alive, if he and I are lucky. But here, the goal so close, my purpose in front of me, silence and machinery-smells, the Force flowing like low fog—

Footsteps. A being at a service station, walking around the curve of a pole. A moment's silhouette allows me to see the four shoulders and broad back; he is Pho Ph'eahian or Morseerian--I take to the shadows of another thick fuel store before I can think of anything but the release his death will bring. Suddenly trajectory is the world, the clicks of my boots running now are the world, this alien is the end point of everything--

I hit him from behind, sink my fingers into fur—Pho Ph'eahian—go to ground with him. His neck breaks as I whip his body over mine and crouch, knees against his caught-in-heaving-breath sides in case I am wrong and his species can survive that snap—!

He is still and the Force cries out.

Not too loud, not louder here than anywhere else—it is simply the life fleeing, and I turn my back on it. I pace on, up into the light, smiling a smile that does not feel natural but satisfies. For a moment, that serviceman was every Jedi I have ever imagined, every one that I have ever met.

**After skirting students **who will feel nothing more than a passing tremor of fear in my wake, I ignite one lightsaber blade. The Padawan in the room below the flowstone cornice I perch on brings his weapon to life. My timing was flawless; the sounds converge.

Precombat tensions hum in the room nearby, and the beacon…cloaked as I am, my own senses are not as acute as I would like them to be, and I have been here a span of days without whiff of the Padawan from Naboo. But there is the beacon, the Tatooine-born Anakin Skywalker who saved the Naboo fleet, who shines in the Force like suns, like an electrical socket broken and spitting its power out into the world. He was with the Padawan on Tatooine, and so, my movements have, more often than not, followed him. He is going to duel another boy, in this room I stand next to.

When the other Padawan's weapon ignites, I shear the cover away from the ventilation grate that runs from the hallway to the training salle.

I duck my head and crawl.

It is shameful, yes, moving and sleeping in ducts and vents and long-empty rooms. There are passages here, though, that the Jedi themselves do not know, which run behind the walls and have proved extremely fortunate for me. But the close, metal walls of ventilation shafts, cool and dead, ease the unerring, teeth-grinding urge to _break _things, to break _out_, to kill and storm and—wait. I have to _wait_. And so, in this vent, I watch the Jedi.

I crawl until the light of the training hall flows orange through the bars. I am looking down from very near the ceiling. The hall is five meters each way; in the center is a square of mats, light orange, and around the edges other young Jedi practice while the two whose lightsabers are ignited circle one another slowly, waiting to strike. One blue blade, one green.

And on the edge of the circle, adding to the hums, moving slowly through kata, is the Padawan I have come here to steal.

But he is shorn of braid, and does that not mean…but he is a _Padawan_, in age and thought and movement! But he is a Knight.

And the younglings are dancing now. Tentatively, the blades flash out. These children are clumsier than I expected, swiping, refusing to listen to the voice of the Force and their bodies. They clash and move apart; no one has touched flesh.

Another few steps; the bright boy's feet are drifting out of stance, pointing toward the other. That one is nervous; he sets his teeth and twitches his wrists as if imagining strikes. They are going to clash again—it does not take the Force to intuit that! The clumsy clash comes. Both younglings swing at one another and –_are they _trying _to hit the sabers?_—Anakin Skywalker's stance goes from drifted to dangerous, his legs too far apart, his maneuverability compromised.

My target turns to look at the bout and shouts out clearly: "Watch your feet, Anakin."

Skywalker actually _looks down_, quickly yes, but he resumes his stance. He says, "I'm trying to think about my _hands!_"

I expect the Knight to reprimand the youngling, to flick the Force and send him sprawling, but instead my target resumes his sequence with a decent pivot into a high kick. This is not like my training! Skywalker and the other lurch into strikes again, and the Force pulses as the other slams his saber down toward Skywalker's shoulder. It is a well-timed blow; Skywalker's hands are low.

But I am surprised; the Jedi allow their children to maim one another? The swing is not showing signs of halting.

Then the lightsaber _bounces _off the place between Skywalker's tunic-covered shoulder and his neck, _bounces _off the side of his face, and jerks backward as the other boy backpedals quickly. Skywalker reels for a second, blinking, darts forward. He dodges the lightsaber—the other boy seems to be thinking that he should _stop _now that he failed to defeat Anakin—and slams a fist into the side of his opponent's jaw.

Lightsabers tamed enough to burn but not cut? The Order must dial down the plasma loops' power to keep their Padawans safe, regulating it not to keep it from fluxing out of control, but to minimize the lethality… The touches hurt—Skywalker is rubbing his face. As is the other boy, after that punch. A gnarled imp of a Jedi Master is waddling toward them from where he was watching at the edge of the fighting floor, and my target too is stopping his movements, turning, paining in the Force as he realizes Anakin's…_his charge's…_wounds.

They made my target the beacon's _mentor?_

I almost laugh. At these weak weapons—where is the incentive? Where is the drive, if they are not trying to kill each other? They do not truly fight for their titles, do not leave failures behind?

No matter. I will ask my target later about his organization's poor teaching techniques.

Now, he is checking and consoling his charge, and speaking. They are going to healers. I cannot emerge there.

But I have been scanning the Temple. I know where the healers live in their quiet pools of useless Force. My target will go there, and leave his charge alone while bacta is applied to his reddening face.

Afterward, I can confront him.

**The target moves **back into the dark halls after looking after the beacon, into the underlevels where none of his kind walk; it is an amusing show of deference. He is accompanied by a compatriot of my alien victim, by chance or discovery—if the latter, no matter. I will be gone from this place soon. For a brief, exciting moment I imagine turning and killing this worker too. But there would be no point. And my _target _is right there, walking down the hallway in the opposite direction from the Twi'lek servant.

I emerge from a duct, shake dust from the shoulders of my cloak, walk crouched along a ledge beside a wall rougher than those in the Temple proper. I realize that I am hungry; I have subsisted on nutrition capsules for the past three days.

My target walks below me, his short hair not hidden by the brown Jedi cloak. The drop from the hall to the floor is about eight feet. I fall fast.

I allow my landing to make a sound, a suggestion of footfall. The Jedi turns.

I wish I could see them all like this. Every Jedi in the towers, looking at me with an expression of denial and shock and fear. Admittedly, he doesn't fear much. He'll be their champion, this one. Yes, I respect my enemy.

He almost killed me once.

His hand is nervously at his lightsaber, but he knows the power that backs him here on their ground. It's harder than I thought it would be, not to kill him now. I want to _move_, to unleash, to channel all my pent of wrath at this _human_—but then I would have come here for naught.

I say, "Are you surprised to see me?"

"'Surprised' is not quite the word I'd use." He says, eyes narrowing.

I know exactly how this dialogue will go. I know what will surprise him more, and I await it eagerly. "I've been looking for you. Do you know why, Jedi?"

"You want revenge." _Revenge on me, _he is thinking. His nervousness trickles through the Force, but there is readiness atop it. I expect anger; the ties that bound him to his Master hurt when they were sliced apart. But, true to the Jedi, he has practiced serenity so much that there are barely any emotions left for him to use.

I answer, "No."

Ah, the surprise. The stilling of breath. "No?"

I pace. "No. I hunt a man who calls himself Darth Tyranus. I need whatever information you have in order to find him. And you need me to kill him." He opens his mouth to speak, then, intimidated, silences himself. "You get the prize, the glory if you find any. I only want the favor of my Master. Do you understand, Jedi?"

We look at one another for a moment.

He says, "I understand, but this must remain strictly between the two of us."

"Of course." He expected something else? "The galaxy thinks I am dead. Who would believe you anyway?"

I offer him a handshake. He seals his fate.

His grip is middling strong, and I escape it quickly. My next words judge him; will he obey orders? "Move. We are not invisible enough here."

I thumb a control at my right gauntlet, awakening my ship, the distant _Scimitar. _It will meet us at my location. He starts to speak, does not, walks down the corridor and turns onto a catwalk, always looking back, his Force sense piqued and frightened. I pass him by. The air changes slightly, the small differences in flow telling me that we have gone from inside the Temple to as outside as one gets at this depth of Coruscant. Below the corrugated catwalk is a small lot for delivery craft and workers' speeders.

"Are you prepared to depart, Jedi?"

The human's pale face showed confusion. "We're going to leave now?"

"You would rather I give you time to report my presence to your Council." Fool. He thinks I will let him run. "You have your supplies. What else do you require?"

"My Padawan."

I almost laugh; so my target was made a master. These soft Jedi. "Do you want Tyranus to kill the whelp?" The beacon on my ship! Sidious would know our presence immediately. It is ridiculous.

The Jedi says, "I should at least tell him I am leaving."

"He is Force sensitive. He will know."

The two grappling lines fall out of the ship, hissing, and I catch one in my hand and look up at the distant gray against more grayness that is my ship next to a monolith. I glance at the Jedi. Here will be the first controlled test of his training! "Climb, Jedi." I relish speaking the word, for I am ridding myself of it, and am sure that derision curdles it so that my target knows precisely what I think of his kind.

If he hesitates, I suppose I will have to threaten him. Pity that he could not climb, nor fight for a time, without a hand.

I begin to pull myself up the thick line, past stories of windows, into the gales of Coruscant streets that whip my cloak about my body and threaten my eyes with pain.

The Jedi, half a meter behind me on the end of his line and pock-marking the Force like a black hole in spacetime, says, "Kenobi." I wonder if he is cursing, or calling the name of an ally. His Master, perhaps? But there is no danger sense. He says, "My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi."

Query beats in the Force; he wants my appellation. _Obi-Wan Kenobi _means less to me than _target. _"I am Darth Maul."

Silence. The Jedi ascends faster than I do. I would rue this were I not hesitant to move too quickly, with such strain on my arms and the skin of my chest pulling at the old wound.

But then the Force warns. Seconds-that-feel-like-minutes before the snap-hiss of the green lightsaber above me, I pull my own weapon from my belt and raise it up, one blade jumping to life, my right hand still clutching the line. I bat the strike away and flick my gaze down, up, enough to see the canyon-street falling away beneath us.

Sudden rage—all the talk was a distraction! Kenobi will not leave the Temple this easily. I aim a strike at his face and the green saber neatly tips and blocks, but Kenobi blinks in the brightness. My line swings with the movement, my grip grown stiff and paining—_curse you, Kenobi, for a torturer,_ leaving me unable to train after Naboo! But Kenobi is useless for a moment.

I holster my saber and move on up the line as he recovers, using the Force to boost my speed, feeling wind scour at my skin and smelling the tinge of exhaust fumes in the air as it whips past. I reach the thick floor of the ship's ramp and pull myself up, set my feet under me. I could cut his line now. I could tear him from it with the Force, could push his own lightsaber back into his face—but he is necessary. I did not come here to kill him, I came here to _wait_, to find the Jedi, and I have been _waiting _so long in that cursed Temple and now even this far from it I can breathe after drowning and _why should I let him live?_

And Dooku's wrinkle-scoured, impassive face meets my mind's eye.

With easy, easy rage I stretch out a hand and with the Force snag the weighted end of the line Kenobi is climbing. It raises to the level of the ship, bowing the line, hoisting the Jedi to hang below and at the edge of the decking. He remains stoic, controlled, despite the vertiginous movement of the lines and the streams of lighted traffic far, far below.

I snarl, "I wasn't planning on killing you yet." (Oh how I want to.)

Stoicism. To let Kenobi up I release my hold on the line and let it swing, and step back into the shadow of the ship's hall. A moment later Kenobi drags himself up onto the deck.

He says no more. The ship's hatch stands open in the wind and speeder-sound. When I reach it, I climb up and retract the line into its cabinet. Kenobi follows me into the ship, silent, questioning, tasting the dark side on the air. Soon, I will hide no longer…

I ask, "Will you cooperate?"

"Yes."

On the main deck, I tell him to sit. He hesitantly backs into one of the chairs in the half-circle, the ones which I have never before seen used.

When I take the ship's controls and fly it out of the atmosphere, Kenobi—target no longer, ally now, dangerous droid from whom I will pull information—speaks. With enough apathy in his voice that I know he is in shock—his fear slides under the surface of his thoughts, pressuring to express itself—he says, "What is your destination?"

"Into space." I do not know the course after; I will head for a major spacelane and cruise, and then we will discuss Kenobi's knowledge of Tyranus.

As the ship breaks into hyperspace, I figuratively breathe easier, letting down my control which I feel like I have been holding for so long, releasing the impediments upon my Force powers which concealed me from the Jedi. Again, I feel strong instead of crafty, and I am comfortable. Kenobi blazes dimmer than his protégé, but still he is a candle, its light eating away at and being dimmed by the darkness which, as natural to me as water to a Gungan, permeates the ship. Will I turn him? If it is useful.

I want to _kill _something. The self-healing training droids I have here are almost good enough, almost sufficient, programmed so that I cannot predict their attacks by their movement alone.

_Tiresome._

But I must be sure that rooms and systems are locked, must secure my ship against this intruder-guest-contrivance that is the Jedi. I turn and walk toward him. He looks up at me and I can feel the sadness and shock in his eyes, as he grows used to the darkness, as he senses his kin so distant. Pitiful, how much control over his facilities he has lost by a simple change of scene. No matter. I consider knocking him out for a while, so that he will be out of the way and his brain can recover.

He is weary.

I say, "Follow me," and lead him to an unused room within which is a half-unfolded cot—a second sleeping cell which was never used except sometimes for storage. He presses on the cot's struts and sits down. I leave him, and the door hisses shut behind me.

I lock it from the outside, and leave it that way until I have password-locked the Bloodfin and most of the rooms in the ship. I realize that I am weary myself, from the return of the Force as well as deprivation of it. I unlock Kenobi's door and retire to my own cell, twitchiness smoothed by my body's demand for recovery.

I sleep, as it is said, with one eye open, but this is no different from any other resting period, any other place. Memories of Sidious, of my young self scarred by saber or shiv the moment before the Force screams me into consciousness, will not let me feel safe.


	5. Approximation

IV

As soon as I awaken, I am thinking of the droids, and then of hunger. While I check that we are still spearing through hyperspace in the proper direction and at the proper velocity, I eat and drink. Then to the battle—

I have been waiting for this for…it feels like so long. I almost fumble at the hatch, I am so eager to release the training droid within and slaughter it, change its hologrammic faces, leave a trail of flesh-pixels behind, desiccate this final gift from Sidious!

This machine, a prototype like my ship, can replicate any face and fighting style that I have sufficient records of. I choose the Jedi. Not the Twi'lek whom I death-danced with among the towers of Coruscant, but a more recent acquisition.

The gray-black droid, a spindly thing, walks out of the hatch and coats itself in Kenobi's Master. The holographic face is colored like the man was in life, tan skin rough with wear, and is capable of the simpler expressions. A brown cloak-hologram shrouds the droid's body, a poor substitute for Jedi robes, but the closest to replication that it can achieve. The droid raises itself on sussurating hydraulic legs and is not humanlike in its movements, but it achieves its goal; it looks down at me.

I take steps backward, keeping my eyes on the lined human face. For a moment, I imagine that there is confusion in the blue eyes. But the one thing that a droid cannot replicate is a Force presence, and so the emotion is shallow, simply a guess.

_It is good enough—_

The droid's lightsaber is real, given to it by Sidious. As soon as the emerald blade ignites—snap-hiss-invasion of the senses—I _move_--!

My lightsaber sweeps beside me as I let the faux Jedi, avatar of the Order, see the ruin that is my sincerest smile. He is every Jedi that ever lived, that ever bowed to Bane or Syn or Traya, and I cut a shallow slice through his left arm before droid-Jedi reflexes can save him.

_Plural or singular, no matter—slay the Jedi!_

The droid spins. Our feet are too close, but I do not want to escape. I want to _feel_—I duck my head and the green blade sizzles above my head. With one hand I catch its left wrist--although it is droid, it is calibrated for human strength, and so its weapon momentarily stills in its sweep. I move to drive my lightsaber blade into its neck, to bisect its jaw—but I sense its foot sweeping across the floor toward mine and I am not prepared. I turn its wrist into a fulcrum and twist into the air, land in ready stance, take the fight back to the droid with my lightsaber held low.

When it turns to face me, I stab it through the heart.

Kenobi has been standing in the doorway for the last few breaths. Now his Force sense, which I expect to explode, emotions ripping at the careful casing the Jedi have forged around themselves, sinks into a pit of cold. His emotions still and crack with spreading ice, and he is staring, frozen, helpless.

It is amusing, how my enemy cut himself off from his weapons, but I also realize that knowing so little about him may prove dangerous to me. The Force does not predict mundane actions as well as it does the ones emblazoned by the light of combat. It is possible that I would not know if he were planning on betraying me subtly, although he would know if I made for his throat now--

I am so ready to kill him.

Everything in me commands it. Everything screams that the life before me is only for the destroying, but those are Sidious' orders, ingrained as deep as needles in my flesh, and I have left Sidious behind. My Master, the most perfect and vile of the Sith Lords, epitome of my fighting arts and of alchemies I could never touch, he who taught me to exterminate the Jedi, has left me behind.

My indecision saves Kenobi now, but he is still _target_, and it ought to be discipline, not wracking uncertainty, that stills my hands next, or he will be _prey_.

I shed the mental skin of seething wrath, and still myself to speak coherently to him as he, cold in thought, prods the fallen droid with his boot.

I say, "Do not touch my equipment."

Kenobi looks up, brow furrowed in anger. "You can't call him _equipment._"

The Jedi means his Master, not the droid, although the elder human is gone from my thoughts in all but form. Of course it must have hurt the apprentice, to lose a teammate. But to hold the wound open for so long, in company that will _use _it…impractical, Jedi… "Your Master is dead. Do not dwell on him."

"Then don't give me any more _reasons_ to dwell on his death!" His emotions crack the conditioned shell now, spilling, fiery, and he can only feel them seethe within himself. No better than those who know none of the Force at all, those who ignore its stronger urgings…yes, my arrogance is _earned! _

The combat droid's hologrammic shell has faded, its connections to itself dead with its false heart. I will repair and reactivate it later. For now I clip my lightsaber to my belt, hook my fingers under the machine's collarbone and drag it to the side of the room, aware of Kenobi but intent on my work. I must be prepared for whatever challenge fate or I set before me next.

"Did you even know his name?" The Jedi asks.

The Master, the light-and-shining-metal one. "His name was Jedi."

I release the droid—gravity moulds it against the wall as it slumps like a dead man—and turn to face Kenobi again.

He says, "His name was Qui-Gon Jinn."

I let him see me leisurely walk toward the room's exit. He has interrupted what was to be a few hours of training for the morning, but a change in one's environment requires new steps, and so I will see whether I have need to force him to leave me alone.

"His name was Qui-Gon Jinn, and he was a good man and a great teacher, who hadn't finished with his student."

I am curious about his kind, although I must beware that clinical interest does not turn into an anger I cannot resist. Jedi, with their weak children and numbers like herd animals…

But I turn my back to him for a moment, and gauge how close he is to preparing an attack. I say, "Why do you value names?"

He pauses for a heartsbeat. I will not leave him here alone.

I glance at the droid. "Its name, if you wish to define it as such, is TX-52." But in my mind it is _droid, _as he is _human _or _Jedi, _as Skywalker is _beacon_, as the first Master I slaughtered was _Twi'lek_,and I am…I am _I, _in thought and utterance_. _Images or actions, not frail Aurek-Besh. _"_ It fought with your Master's speed and skill. What it calls itself means nothing."

Kenobi sits stiffly on an equipment crate. Good, he has chosen to stay instead of run. He needs to understand.

And he is willing to; "Why me then, if names mean nothing? Shouldn't every Jedi be the same?"

"I knew your Force signature. I knew your prowess in combat."

I turn to face him; here is where he will learn my mission, and join it whether he wishes to or not. The only danger now…but no. A Jedi would not run to Dooku for aid. And I do not foresee being unable to deal with rebellion before the fateful fight.

"You said you needed my help. Why? What for?"

"There is a dark lord called _Tyranus, _a myrmidon of the Sith who casts a pall over your Temple. I seek to kill him. But I have been_ damaged. _And you pledged yourself to battle the dark side, as I pledged myself to have my revenge. You will aid me."

"It isn't that simple, Maul. There's a few more things I need to know. First, how did you survive Naboo?"

I almost reach to touch my fingertips to the wound, its uneven tissue tangible against my tunic. A strange reflex, that…as if some part of me were still frightened, still wishing to protect my frailest point.

Animals cannot erase the moves evolution makes for them, but I will overcome. I still, and tell the Jedi, "You missed my hearts."

He keeps firing vague questions. "How did you escape?"

"From the room, or from the world? Both were simple enough."

"How did you get from Naboo to Coruscant?"

_Through deep space, through Byss, through _waiting_—but enough of this. A war of words prolongs the true battle. _I concede, and try to explain things bluntly. "I spent time healing, and learning about Tyrannus. Then I remembered_ you_. My ship can pass through any sensor's lines undetected, and for Coruscant there are passcodes. Afterward, finding a berth was an insignificant assignment. It was riskier to enter your Temple, but that undertaking was, apparently, a success."

"Tell me about Darth Tyrannus. Everything you know."

"He is Sidious' apprentice, but an old man, one who once followed the Jedi teachings. I fought him once…" I will not admit my weakness to this Jedi…but he must know of our encounter. I have already admitted that I need his aid. "He was a master of Makashi. He defeated me,"… although I survived--!"but permitted my survival." Arrogant, fool Jedi-spawn…Do not mock me, Kenobi. Do not dare to, or I will find a replacement for you.

"It does seem strange that Tyrannus simply let you escape."

There is truth in that, which I was too determined to forget to see. "You mean that he must have had a reason to do so."

"He must have. Perhaps Tyrannus wishes to have you distract your Master, so that he might destroy him. If I'm not mistaken, that is the way of the Sith."

"Or he is tracking us."

Only I, not my ship, was in range. A biological tracking device, placed while I was unaware of the world.

Am I so foolish? So narrow-minded?

Yes. And sometimes, single-mindedness means strength.

It does not now.

Kenobi says, "That would make sense. But if that's the case, he knows that you, at least, are coming after him again. Which means that we have a limited amount of time in which to find it, and disable it."

Again, truth. "I will find it. You will leave."

For a moment he waits, as if considering a course of action.

He departs, and I am alone with Dooku's malignancy.

Tyrannus could not have reached my ship; it would not have allowed his approach. The device is most likely designed to interface with the biological, not the mechanical. But it is unlikely that I would not have noticed a new scar. I was not debilitated afterward, either, no more than can be explained by my wound from the duel at Naboo.

That scar tissue could hide a device. I could have never noticed a small pain separate from the larger one.

I sit on the floor, lid my eyes, and focus the Force.

Kenobi is present in the distance, unthreatening. Beyond him, hyperspace, the wilderness of ripped and tortured physics. I skirt that chaos, concentrate on myself.

My heartsbeat, my breathing, my responses to stimuli are perfect. I _am _healing, subliminally mending the deep rend in my self. Always the damaged tissue is softening, although it will never return to its former state. But there is, as I feel without touch, one unchanged, tiny knot, settled in the lower layers of my skin. A small chip, the crude sort that could be inserted with a syringe and used for medical monitoring or temporary identification. It is unlikely that this could track me through hyperspace, unless there is higher technology in the galaxy than I know of, but if we are within a planet of one another, Tyrannus could know my location.

It is a fearful thing to distrust your own body, and one which I have now experienced far too often. This weakness must be discarded.


	6. Voyage

V

I move to the med room and cast a glance over the droid before ascertaining what I already knew; it will not suit my purpose. The tracking device is macroscopic—there truly is no technology for it to be otherwise, especially since Tyrannus needed to utilize it so quickly—but it is small, the size of a datachip. The droid could be programmed to remove shrapnel from a wound, but I can act more quickly than it can, can use the Force to find this intrusion myself, which is safer by far than the clumsy explorations the droid will embark on. I will not risk further damage to scar tissue, further restrictions of movement.

I set my cloak and tunic aside and take a syringe from a cabinet—this is anesthetic, carefully stored since before my near-death—and slip the needle beneath my skin beside the scar. It is an awkward angle; it will be difficult surgery if I do it myself. I do not want to inflict more damage than is necessary.

I must enlist Kenobi's aid, then, although it galls me to ask for it. He has surely been trained in the healing arts, as Jedi react instead of take action. This will be over quickly, and if he thinks to betray me, thinks that my setting a weapon in his hand offers him any sort of superiority, he will find himself gravely mistaken. I hesitate for a moment. Is there a better way? Is there a batter opportunity in which I may give him the false impression that I trust him? I can think of none that would serve so well.

There is a vibroknife which is designed for careful surgery on a shelf nearby, where there are also forceps, and I retrieve them and go back into the main hold. Kenobi is entering it as well, and he stops and looks at me.

I say, "I found the tracking device." After a moment—is that fear trickling through his thoughts?—I am forced to inquire, "Did you hear me, Jedi?"

"Have you disabled it?"

"It is a biological tracking device."

"Biological? As in hidden on your body?"

"In the scar tissue. Tyrannus must have implanted it after our fight." I indicate the scar with the knife. "They taught you healing at your Temple. You must help me remove it."

Kenobi takes the knife. He is, I note, right-handed.

I pull a crate from a nearby storage room—it is the packaging for one Dark Eye droid, one spare—and sit down on it.

I do not want this.

He hesitates, but after a moment the needle touches me, cold and painless, and I can see but not feel it pierce my skin, feel but not see the Force churning in restless emotion beneath Kenobi's façade of calm, beneath the focus on surgery which he insists he maintain (and I am pleased that he does! I will not expose myself to damage because of _his_ lack of discipline). The emotions beneath are not easily named—they are like anger, are like nervousness, but perhaps this is what Jedi Mastery means, this hint of…stoicism that makes the world clear.

It is maddening, how much power is spent on such a useless endeavor. Why clean the world of its imperfections when they can be _used_? Why stifle power, why not let it _take oneself over--_

Kenobi, you shall at least be a distraction for Dooku, so that he will turn and look at you and expose his side to me, and I will _strike--_

I do not want this weakness, of sitting still while the Jedi does his essential work so that our greater mission might succeed. But he is stoic indeed, and I sense that he has found the device, and he reaches aside for the forceps.

(It is almost like my tattooing, this forced stillness, but yet it is entirely unlike that, because here there is no pain, and here there is no trust. And so, I will remove this from my memory quickly.)

These thoughts pass by and are forgotten. Far more comfortable is the _now_.

I would be able to move beforehand if he tries to kill me. I would, no matter how it would rend my skin to wrest the instruments from his hand.

Quickly enough, he extracts the device. It had simply been emplaced, nesting in the lowest levels of my skin. Subtly frightening. The wound does not bleed much; the vibroknife assures that. But it will need rebandaging. I want to get away from Kenobi quickly and be sure to treat the wound properly—I must not underestimate my guest, although it would be impossible for him to sneak up on me here, or perhaps anywhere. I know the Force more thoroughly than he does.

I stand, ready to let the medical droid finish patching the small wound. Kenobi asks the question I would have asked him if he had not spoken. "What do I do with this?" He holds the device up, a little machine-organ with slick sides and dull lights glowing from with its silver center.

"Destroy it."

I leave him, and close the door of the tiny medbay behind me before sitting down there and summoning the meddroid. Lights run across its surface, gradients of green.

It does its work, sealing the incision with synthskin which will protect and close it. This takes a few minutes; then I replace my tunic and seek out Kenobi, because perhaps he may have motive to keep the tracking device whole—perhaps he can use it somehow so that the Jedi may track us. I must circumvent this possibility.

He is sitting near the doorway of his makeshift quarters, meditating. The Force flows tempered around him, as if he struggles to know it in the way he usually does. Of course—the temple is a bastion of light (and yet so easily deceived--)

I say, "What did you do with the device."

"I destroyed it, as you told me to."

"Relinquish it."

"It's broken. I threw it out."

Anger burns through me—I must not admit that I could have chosen better words. "You did not think that I would want proof of its destruction?"

"I can't be expected to read your mind."

"I do not expect clairvoyance, simply practicality. Do they not teach you that at your temple?"

"Do not presume to know anything about my life or my training," Kenobi snapped, and now, finally, he was letting his anger show its dragon's-face to him, and he almost moved.

How different is the sensation of the Force between when an attack is going to come and when there is simply the potential of one.

Retorts tumble through my thoughts and I rein in a single, coherent one. "No matter the quality of your training, I require your aid. If you do not show yourself capable of giving that aid you are not of use to me." _And I'll kill you if you seem liable to fail me, because I simply _tolerate _your presence here, Jedi._

"If our common mission is to eliminate the threat that Darth Tyrannus presents, then I believe we will be useful to each other."

Of course that is true—it was my motive all along. But now I envision failures of the plan—if Kenobi is cut down too quickly, if he betrays me. I am for a moment wordless (and comfortable there—I should have known, this is just like on Tatooine, I should have known, so much more _he _should have known, that I am liable to act in _certain ways_, that this verbal battle is not that at which I am most practiced. But I am distracting myself, careening off into the mists of thoughts which emerge like the subjects of dreams, things which I have been thinking of but not aware of their constant presence. Later--) Back to Kenobi's forced loyalty now. "Perhaps that too is something of which I require proof." I do not expect him to profess allegiance, or to pass a test—but simply to comply, to be able to comprehend what I ask of him. Any less could result only in my own forging of a trap for myself.

I did not plan this endeavor thoroughly enough. He has too much freedom.

He says, "I suppose that for the time being you will simply have to trust me, as I am trusting you."

"You are not trusting me. You are a captive."

He has no answer. I leave him there.

**"Are we still **on course?"

"Yes."

"Where are we on course to?"

"Nowhere." I look up from my dinner to find the Jedi standing behind the pilot's chair where I am seated, looking down at me. "Random jumps for now, to alleviate pursuit." And to be sure that he was not going to betray me—this ship does not _really _need conventional methods of hiding. If he asks our eventual destination, I will give it. But Vjun may mean little to him (although it is one crucible after another for me—_calm_--!) and I will give him no possible method of escape if I can avoid it.

I want to shake my head—I feel like thoughts will splatter on the consoles like blood from a cut if I do. Released from me, they can dry, can congeal, can be thrown away. They need not clutter me. I want _action_, not this impatient deliberation—

I must be patient.

Patience.

_Patience. _

Breath easing in and out.

The Jedi asks, "And where will we go when you are satisfied we are not being followed?"

"Vjun. Tyrannus has a stronghold there."

He does not move. I push the plate of food I set on the console toward him slightly. "Eat." He needs his strength.

I am forced to pay attention to him again only when he asks, "What is it?" He is holding up a cup of the Iridonian wine, and I tell him so. He drinks, then departs via the turbolift.

I give him a few minutes to pass out. Frail humans. All this sort of alcohol does is stain the teeth of my kind. I do not know how Lord Sidious kept it from fogging his mind.

I find the Jedi lying on the deckplates outside the lift. A crude method, yes, and nearly laughably simple, but easy. He won't bother me for the next twelve hours or so.

I've just made the quick decision to leave him as he is (again—soon he will learn to take care of himself. I suppose it was the Master I killed whom he leaned on--) when he mumbles something. "I thought I was meant to follow your advice."

He is drunk, mired in delusion.

"And when I judge wrong?" he slurs against the deckplates. Uncertain even in his stupors? Pathetic human. Derision compels me; I fold my arms and look down at him, considering how easy it would be to crush the thin bones of his hand with my foot.

I say, "Then you fail."

"Because….I…."

The Force swirls. He may be delusional; he may be having a vision. The latter could be dangerous to me; he might lash out.

He says, "I will not fail you."

I scoff, amused. Delusion. I walk away.

**The thoughts I **set aside earlier come to me again as I sit on the edge of my bunk and remember Tatooine. Uncertainty. Alien queries into my own thoughts. Memory.

_Like the Dorvallan miners, Queen Amidala is my target, but is little more than an object because she does not know the Force. She is the cargo that I will steal from the Jedi. But the Master and Padawan are the living sparks in the darkness to me, while she is gray, another pawn for my master's army which does not know that it is his._

_I know that it would come as a surprise to the Jedi that my master orchestrated the Trade Federation's invasion. Often he leaves me for stretches of time and has his hands in matters too complex for me. _

_During my first chance to capture the Naboo queen, I am so distracted by the Jedi. We converged, and although I could have snatched her up and flown away, I yearned to test myself. To feel the fray, to fall into the midst of the Jedi and tear them apart, proving that warriors who preach peace make no good guards--! (Hear the threat in my thoughts' voice, Jedi. I will extinguish you.)_

_The clash with the Master is fast and satisfying, hidden in sun, deadly as the desert._

_Amidala escapes, and I rue but only for a moment that I left my ship behind. Now I have the Jedi, and I have been trained for them, not for the _mundane--!

_But I cannot go against my Master's words, even as actions like chemicals course through me from his conditioning. _

_I hunt them—the Jedi who do not yet know that they will die, the Queen (my target so hard to focus on), the bright beacon-boy that the Jedi and the Force found on Tatooine, the pack of servants. They run back to Naboo. _

_And again, I cannot resist. The Jedi give me an opportunity to corner them, to split their group, to cull the weak from the herd…there is a moment of crux; I could either turn aside and pursue _her_ or forge ahead and engage _them. _ The droidekas serve their purpose, menacing the soldiers. _

_Calmness, waiting, burning, controlled malignancy. I savor the moments while the doors open, when I let them see the way I, as Sidious does, control the fates of them all. _

_Their lightsabers scream to life, and I can do nothing to stop myself from walking the path they walk, because verbal constructs fail, the hums are behind my eyes, Amidala is gone, surrounded by the universe, and we are outside it, powers, forces, Force-swept, trilogy—white, grey and _onyx_--!_

Memory intoxicates.

Long had Sidious taught me to react at the sound of a lightsaber, to take from it my wrath-fed power. And then he sends me on a mission in which I must choose between two Jedi and one mundane girl—no matter her title, not matter her weapon-skill, she is dim to my strongest sense—and expected me to choose correctly?

I would be so foolish to think him a fool.

He left me to die.

Part of me still admires him. What betrayal, what Sith perfection! How preemptive, if he feared me taking the long-upheld traitorous apprentices' route, and if the death of Kenobi and Jinn was not essential.

But I _lived_, invincible and patient still.

I cannot—it sours and twists—comprehend being greater than him.

Did he plan this as well? That could be why I am still alive. But Occam's Razor slits a plan like that. And what would Sidious want with Kenobi? With Skywalker?

There. My Master could utilize the beacon.

As if I require more evidence of his desire to replace me.

These thoughts accompany me to sleep. Although I know they are important, a small, weak part of me hopes that in the morning I will have forgotten them.

It is a young part. It is undistinguishable from my relationship with Sidious.

And while I want to preserve it, I know that I must leave it behind.


End file.
